Spy School: Zoe or Erica?

Truth Or Dare Part 4

"Erica, spin!" Jayden said, crossing his arms as she beckoned him to hand over the bottle.

Erica threw the bottle directly at Jayden's crotch, which of course was intended in the first place, and Jayden barely managed to dodge the shot.

"Ha!" he jeered a millisecond after the finessed move. "You missed for once!"

"I wasn't aiming for that," she said, and the bottle bounced off the floor, ricocheted off the wall, and planted itself right between Jayden's crotch.

"I knew you were going to dodge it- so I purposefully threw a weak throw that would perfectly bounce back to its original target. Don't underestimate me," Erica said, flipping her hair backward.

It was then that I finally realized something was wrong with her current personality. 

First of all, Erica would never flip her hair after a remark like that. That would be a show of flirtation, something that Erica never radiated. 

Secondly, she had acted all warm to me in the closet earlier- and the last time we were one-on-one in a tiny space, she didn't do the same thing.

And third of all, Erica had obliged to put on makeup. And perfume. The real Erica would never do such a thing. Trying to make her put on perfume and makeup was like trying to make her willingly inject cyanide into herself- wait, scratch that, she already willingly injected cyanide into herself before. As you readers probably know by now, Erica was the type of person to inject dangerous poisons beforehand. And because of this, when they actually were purposefully used by enemies, she knew how to deal with it.

Okay, you get the point. Erica was acting- well, weird.

But that wasn't important at the current moment. What was important is that the bottle had landed on me.

Jawa and Chip both groaned, obviously because both of them hadn't been included in the truth or dare action yet. I calmly told themselves to consider themselves lucky- if you heard Erica's truths hidden in her brain, you would wish you weren't even alive.

Jayden smiled at this outcome. "What's Erica going to ask? Have another three minutes of private time? Maybe five?"

Erica suddenly appeared directly behind him, cold glare penetrating into his back. When Jayden realized this action, he shouted in surprise, dropping his glass of water onto the ground. It shattered, silencing the room, and shards flew everywhere.

One of them jabbed directly into Erica's right arm, but she didn't seem to mind the blood trickling down her arm- she was probably already used to it, seeing the number of battles she'd been in within her spy life.

After whispering something to Jayden and listening to him gulp and nod, she retreated back to her original spot in the room, sitting back onto the bean bag chair. 

"Dare," I said, avoiding Mike's smirk. Even though saying I wanted a dare from Erica was like saying that I wanted to be dumped into a moving mosh pit, I didn't want to sound like a wimp.

Erica didn't feel bad for me anyhow. After all, she had just kissed me. Giving me an embarrassing dare was pretty much just a payment for the action.

"Ben," she said, looking directly at me. "I need to talk to you, a serious one-on-one. And before you guys go on and start saying we're going to do something naughty, I'm going to say that we're letting you browse us on the cameras. But no microphone whatsoever."

Everyone seemed satisfied with this, but also confused at the same time. If Erica wasn't going to do any particular secretive action, then what was the point of making us talk by ourselves?

After we squeezed back into the original spot, I started to get a fuzzy feeling. Kind of the one you get when you come back to your childhood home- like wow, I made so many good memories here.

Erica, however, showed no emotion. In fact, she now seemed colder than usual.

"Ben," she said. "I've been meaning to tell you this for a while, but I haven't- for your own good."

"What is it?" I said. 

"I've found a giant lead on SPYDER," she said. "The other day, when I was examining the area around the headquarters, I foun-"

Suddenly, she stopped. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed.

"That little moron," she muttered, but the last word being something much more colorful.

"Um, by 'moron', who exactly are you referring to?" I said uneasily, backing away.

Erica's look turned more intense. "Jayden."

"Wha- why? He isn't even here in this conversation!" I exclaimed.

Erica shook her head in disapproval, wiping the tip of her finger onto her blood leaking from her arm. "Do you see this?" she said, showing me the drop of red life of her finger.

"Um- yeah, it's a drop of blood. What about it?"

Erica groaned. "Is there anything unusual about it? For heaven's sake, Ben, you really need to learn more things about dangerous chemicals."

Dangerous chemicals? I thought. Is Erica going crazy, or is blood suddenly becoming a dangerous chemical?

"Stop looking confused," Erica hissed. "Do you not realize what Jayden did? It's the reason why I've been feeling so warm today- and also the reason why I did you-know-what."

"What is the reason why?" I said, taking a look at her blood again.

Erica deepened her glare into the camera. "Jayden. The idiot snuck oxytyramine into my bloodstream somehow- and it's been making me feel on an energy high."

"What did you just call me?"

"Oxytyramine. It's a chemical that's similar to and basically dopamine- it triggers pleasure inside your brain, making you feel like you're in a bliss. That's why I was acting up for the past few hours."

My brain sunk. So that's why she kissed me. Because she wasn't being the true Erica. Because she'd been rigged with oxy-whatever that chemical was called. Basically, I had been kissed by an alter ego.

"The second the blood came out, I detected something wrong. It wasn't long before I realized there were large amounts of oxytyramine stuck in there," Erica said, facing the camera and launching the most hateful glare ever. 

I could feel Jayden's gulp, even when I was all the way over here.

"So... his plan was to make you on a bliss, stick us in a closet, and then hope we do something that's naughty-worthy?"

"Yep," Erica said. "The idiot."

Readers, be aware that I am mentally cleansing this conversation. All the bad words have been removed, but you can probably guess where they are. But don't try to guess what they are- I'm not here to make you dirty-minded kids guess the words.

Anyways, I would bet at that exact second Erica was going to jump out and strangle Jayden. Whatever it was, I didn't want to be around for it. 

Alright, I'll stop here for now, but I will write more today